By:Carrie James
Woodland students send science projects into earth orbit on shuttle
In Rich Santer's sixth-grade science class at Woodland Middle School, students will start a unit on environmental science this week. Instead of reading about pond life in a textbook, they will get hands-on experience with pond samples that two months ago they sent into space - outer space, that is.
"We teamed up with a school in the Troy [school district]. The teacher and I proposed PONDS NY," Santer said. "It stands for Pupils Observing Natural Dynamics in New York. The students collected different pond samples, and they can compare downstate, manmade pond samples versus upstate, natural ponds. Or they can compare those that remained on earth to those that went into space."
PONDS NY came out of a partnership between Santer and Nicole Lindeman, a sixth-grade science teacher at Tamarac Middle School in Britonkill, a suburb near Albany. Both teachers had participated in NASA's Educator Workshop program last summer and learned about a educational program known as Space Experiment Module, or SEM.
The two teachers wrote a proposal that asked the question, "Could you transport ecosystems through space?" The proposal called for 22 samples, including pond samples from Eisenhower Park's manmade pond, distilled water, dried protozoa mix and a sample containing brine shrimp eggs.
The samples, which were collected in February, were stored in a specially designed canister that locks onto the space shuttle's cargo bay and is exposed to the elements of space. The samples flew on Discovery STS-102 March 8 and returned March 21.
"I thought it would be pretty cool," said sixth-grader Jonathan Rothschild about the PONDS NY project. "I thought we would see a lot of change in the samples when they came back."
Rothschild said to the naked eye the samples look virtually the same as when they were sent, but that might not be so. The students will spend the remainder of the year developing an experiment to see how the samples changed, if at all, during their space flight.
This final class experiment coincides with the sixth-grade unit on environmental science, Santer said.
"I wanted to tap into the existing curriculum," he said. "We had a space component at the beginning of the year, and by the time we got the samples back, I knew we'd be ready to start our environmental sciences unit. So, I integrated the project into the curriculum."
Before the students could experiment with the samples, Santer took them on a field trip to Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to pick up the space samples.
The three-day trip included tours of Wallops Flight Facility and NASA's Goddard Flight Center in Maryland. Students also visited two science museums and saw a weather balloon launch.
Students presented PONDS NY at Wallops Flight Center to their classmates and several NASA officials.
"Kids did the original collection; in fact, the only thing I couldn't get the kids involved in was in the packing of the samples for space," Santer said.
Probably today, the kids will begin working on their final experiment of the year. The students can team up with up to three other students and develop their own experiments based on the samples. Either the students can compare the samples from East Meadow to that of Britonkill, or those that stayed on earth versus those that flew in space.
Rothschild said he plans to study how exposure to space affects the life span of brine shrimp eggs. But students can choose from a multitude of topics, Santer said.
"I really want the kids to be instrumental in developing their own study," he said. "That way, it truly gives ownership in the assignment."
